A Peek at the Patterns

For my "mini thesis" project in Illustration I've been designing four tiling patterns, each based on a different decade. These are the initial work ups that I pasted together from some sketches- there are still definite changes to be made. At the moment the '50s is my favorite. (And if you have any suggestions for '80s items, feel free to hit me up! Anything that can be recognizable sans human. So... not leg warmers. Thanks!)

1950's

1960's

1970's

1980's

Kindergarten Perspectives aka Genius

In my spare time I've been typing up a book for my kindergarten class featuring answers each of the kids gave to simple questions- What does the President do, Where you do want to live when you grow up, etc. I had a copy of last year's, which while very amusing featured a front page full of clip art. I set out to make this year's a bit... dare I say it, better? It was done quickly, but I didn't want anything too sophisticated, obviously- the majority of contributors were five. Oh, and that's supposed to be a hawk there. It's the school's mascot.

Here were some of my favorite answers:

What do you like about yourself?
Jeremy: I like my head.

What does the President of our country do?
Adam: We pay taxes and he gets the money.
Emilie: He sits and waits for people to come to him.

If you had a lot of money, what would you do with it?
Maya: Buy Taylor Swift if I could. Buy my brother and sell him to the gypsies.

Two Chairs

I've been experimenting with photo polymer etching in my digital printmaking class. For these two I made two separate channels for each of the colors, and then erased parts so that I'd have part that were pure blue, pure yellow, and then a mix of the two where they overlapped. Then I printed each channel out on a transparency and exposed them on top of a plastic plate with film adhered to it. After developing the film, there are little grooves in the plate wherever the black on the transparency was, and from there on you can ink it up like a normal etching. These are two of the more "perfect" ones.

Ford & Flowers Finished

Here's one of the finished prints from my original design. This one wasn't included in the edition for the print exchange because there was no way I was going to be able to duplicate that slightly messy background, but I do love the way it looks. (For some reason when I scanned it in the background bits that were a smudged sepia just look yellow and weird... *needs a new scanner*)

Last Pee-Wee, I Promise

As per Marisa, here is the Finished version of Mr. Herman, with the line work tweaked.

I Heart: Liberty of London

I mentioned the collaboration between Liberty of London and Target previously, but now that it's here I had to mention it again, because it's just too lovely. No, really. Way too much money has been spent. Go, look!

On That Note...

I was going through The Dainty Squid's archives and found this little dude:

Pee-Wee!

He's done! I think. I don't typically work like this, so this entire assignment was pretty much an entire experiment. Damn I love that dog.

Pee-Wee Preview

The line work isn't totally finished (front tire and background, hem hem) but I like how it's turning out thusfar and felt the need to post something.

Irish Fest 2010

Last time I went to Irish Fest it was hard paying attention to my surroundings- it was my first date with the Benj. Now that the tables have turned/done a total 180, I was forced to revisit it by working on the poster for this year's festival for my illustration class. The first version I wasn't terribly happy with- it felt drab and boring and sure, the sheep were kind of cute but that's really all it had going for it. In the second final I changed the background color to something that wasn't green green and attempted to have fun with that damn typeface.

Don't Ask Don't Tell

For my illlustrative portraiture class we had to show both sides of a political issue with no bias- which is friggin' hard. Unfortunately due to *ahem* relationship issues I missed the critique when I would have loved to have seen what others in the class made, but either way- here's mine. I tried to make it so it would form to your point of view when you looked like it- either you could identify with the proud serving gay person or you could identify with the wary other guys.

(Sketch, in progress, and final.)

It's Finally Paying Off!

A long long time ago I fell in love with these limited edition Nike Dunks with Liberty of London prints on them:And now on March 14th Liberty of London is invading my work, Target, in one of the biggest pair ups Target has ever done- we're talking clothes for everyone, housewares, bedding, and even a kick ass bike for 200 buckaroos. I am saving my discount cards for the arrival so I can do some serious retail therapy. Anyone want to gift me a bike?

I'd Go Green For This

If Moleskins had babies with my favorite journals from Ex Libris Anonymous, I think they would birth this. It's a Found Paper Journal filled with vintage paper from where ever you can dream up- old job applications, ledgers, graph paper, school books... the list goes on and on. Find and love them here.

Flowers and an Old Ford

We're playing around with photo intaglio in my digital printmaking class but I refused to just reproduce some boring old photo that meant nothing to me. Most of my illustrations rely heavily on linework... and that would kind of be missing the entire point of photo intaglio so I took photos and made them exciting. I like it. I want to do more.